Should You Use a Disney Travel Agent?

Plan a Disney vacation all on your own? Or get specialized help?

So, you’re scrolling through Google, looking up stuff about booking a Disney vacation when you come across the idea of using a Disney travel agent.  Should you?  Let’s find out.

First, let’s clear the air on one thing:  The title of “Disney Travel Agent” is one that Disney itself frowns on.  That’s not really an official title.  What you are actually looking for a is a travel agent that specializes in Disney vacations.  What you are not looking for is a general travel agent that just books everything.  Typically, they won’t have the detailed, in the moment knowledge to give you the benefit you’ll get from working with a Disney specialist.

So now that we’ve got that covered, let’s look at how the difference between booking your Disney vacation yourself and using an expert in Disney vacations.

Booking on your own means either booking directly via Disney or via an online booking engine like Expedia, Orbitz, etc.  In order to do this, you will want to spend time researching your options to figure out where you should actually stay, what kind of tickets will be the best value for you, which dining plan, if any, makes the most sense for you, how long you should stay to reasonably accomplish all that you want to do.  Once you know these things, you can go online and book your choices.  You will from that point complete the vacation planning yourself.  In no way is your vacation planning done when you click “book.”  That’s just a small part of a good Disney vacation.  You see, if you just click “book” and then show up at the parks hoping for a great time, you may be sorely disappointed in what you find.  So please, please, please dedicate time to researching all the aspects you need to plan in advance and then devote some time to it!

Booking with a Disney travel agent means that you will contact your specialist for a consultation.  Your Disney specialist will ask you questions and listen to your interests, preference, etc and guide you toward the best options for your package, based on your unique interests.  They’ll take care of arranging the booking for you and THEN the real work starts of putting together your entire itinerary.  A good agent will take care of recommending dining options and arranging all of them for you, will discuss and pre-reserve activities that need reservations, will listen to your preferences and take into account children’s heights and adventure levels and then create custom daily touring plans (including arranging Fast Pass+ reservations for you) to keep you out of the long lines.  They’ll answer your questions along the way, and be your resource even while you are traveling.  They get to know you in a way that a website you book a trip on never will.

So.  Should YOU use a Disney travel agent?  IF you enjoy analyzing, researching and planning every detail of your trip and have the time to do so (and I know this is some of you reading this right now), by all means, you can book on your own and enjoy that you have done every piece on your own.  I absolutely know people who thoroughly enjoy the time spent on such an endeavor (clearly I am one, myself)!  BUT if trying to plot out all the many details of a trip you just don’t know enough about right now, and don’t have the time for or find joy in hours of research, and you love the idea of feeling like you have a personal travel concierge at your side, then working with a specialist in planning Disney vacations is definitely right for you.